Rahul Gandhi On Twitter, Account Not To Be Handled By Him Personally

NEW DELHI — Rahul Gandhi is finally on social media. Heralded for being a youth icon, the 44-year old Gandhi scion joined social networking site Twitter last week, and started tweeting today.

While there was skepticism last week if this was indeed Gandhi's official Twitter handle, all doubts were dispelled today in an e-mail press release from Gandhi's office. "We are happy to launch the Twitter account of the Office of Mr. Rahul Gandhi (@officeOfRG)," read the message.

His account, by the name of "Office of RG" is not a personalised handle, and if the first few tweets are anything to go by, it will only have information updates on the Congress Vice President's activities. Congress sources confirmed that Gandhi would not be tweeting himself.

Watch this space for information and updates on Rahul Gandhi's official programs and upcoming events

Sample this — the first tweet from the Twitter handle (@OfficeOfRG) announces his 15 kilometre "padyatra" (journey on foot) in Telangana's Adilabad district beginning on Tuesday, where he will cover five villages.

Within a couple of hours of Gandhi's account being verified as authentic, his following doubled to over 33,000 followers (and counting) on Thursday afternoon. While some welcomed him, the inevitable Twitter jokes started as well.

Human resources minister Smriti Irani has already agreed on Twitter to a public debate with Gandhi on Amethi. Gandhi raised the issue of Amethi Mega Food Park today in the Parliament, which was closed by the Modi government.

Interestingly, if RaGa can get on Twitter, can parody accounts be far behind? An enterprising person jumped to claim the Twitter handle (@OfficeOffRG), declaring themselves the "official" parody account for Gandhi. The handle has close to a 100 tweets to its credit already, even though it was formed late last night.